User switching fails

[NoOp]

On 11/14/2009 10:26 PM, Michael Knepher wrote:
> After having an attempt to upgrade my jaunty desktop to karmic fail and
> leaving me unable to boot, I went ahead and did a clean install (I
> have /home on a separate partition). The install went without issue, and
> I booted and logged into my account. 
> 
> After some housecleaning with re-installing apps and such, I opened
> System->Administration->Users and Groups to restore the accounts for my
> wife and kids. When I tried adding my wife's account, I got a message
> saying the home folder already existed and the account couldn't be
> created using that folder. Rather than juggle folder names, I closed the
> Users and Groups app, opened a terminal, and added the accounts and set
> the passwords using useradd and passwd. I added each account in the
> order in which they had originally been created, so the user account
> UIDs and the UIDs of the home accounts were the same.
> 
> Logging into each account from GDM works perfectly. Whenever I try to
> use the session applet to switch users, however, I get the unlock dialog
> for the current account. I can get back to the account by entering the
> password, but nothing else. Hitting the "Switch User" button on the
> unlock dialog just brings up a screensaver which hides the unlock
> dialog. It's focused for input (typing the password and hitting enter
> returns me to the desktop), but only shows up if I use ctrl+alt+fn keys
> to go to another vt and back. 
> 
> So I'm stuck in a situation where it is impossible to switch user
> accounts without completely logging out of the current user session. My
> laptop behaves as expected, with Switch User... taking me to the gdm
> login screen, even though I have only one user account on the system. 
> 
> Does anyone have any idea where I might look to try and fix this? I
> don't know if this is a problem with gdm, the session applet or the user
> accounts.

Sorry for not snipping, but figure a reply with the bulk of the post
might help spur someone else to assist...

Michael did you get this sorted out, or do you still need help?